HNC Creative Media Production: Film & TV

Unit 8 – Film Studies

Conor Devitt

https://conordevitt.weebly.com

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Table of Contents

Task 1 3Pre-Classical Era 4Rise of the Studio System 5Golden Age of Hollywood 6The Foreign Wave 7New Hollywood: Film School Generation 8

Key Films from New Hollywood: Film School Generation 9Contemporary Cinema 10

Key Films from Contemporary Cinema 11

Task 2 12

Primary Research for Audience/Genre 13Secondary Research for Audience/Genre 14

Task 3 15

Horror Genre Conventions 16

Analysis of Scream 17

Task 4 18

What is Auteur Theory? 18John Carpenter – Auteur Theory 19

Horror Genre Theory 20Genre codes and conventions in Horror Films 21

Task 5 23

Coming of Age – Carrie 24

Background and Synopsis 25

Identity and Quest 26

Characters 27

Soundtrack 28

Conflict Zones 29

Gangs 30

First Love 31

Death. Crisis. Ending 32

Bibliography 33

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Task 1

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Task 2

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Task 3

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LO3 - Evaluate theoretical frameworks within Film Studies

Task 4.

An illustrated report of no more than 2000 words.

Film Theories (Auteur and Genre) in Horror Films

What is Auteur Theory?

The dictionary defines Auteur as “a filmmaker whose individual style and complete control over all elements of production give a film its personal and unique stamp.”

Auteur is French for the word author. And was first used by French director Francois Truffaut in his critical essay of French cinema in 1954 in “A Certain Tendency of French Cinema” however the first auteur theories were adopted around 1940 by French critic and director Alexandre Astruc. Another notable name in the development of auteur theory is the American film critic Andrew Sarris who published an essay called “Notes on Auteur Theory” 1962.Auteurs are associated with a number of trademarks that they fall into which include:

Thematic or stylistic consistencies

Recurring themes

Established techniques

Defined views of the world

Degree of control over the production1

A key example is Martin Scorsese whose techniques are influenced off

1 They have a major voice on what goes out.

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French New Wave2 so his techniques include freeze frames,3 voiceovers,4 long takes5 and realistic locations6.

Auteur Theory - John Carpenter

When the discussion of horror films is brought up, one director that is always mentioned is John Carpenter. Carpenter developed the interest within the film industry when he was younger and once enrolled at University of Southern California, he won an Academy Award for best live action short subject, with his school project “The Resurrection of Bronco Billy” which he composed the music for as well as co-scripted.

In1974, he released his first full length film called Dark Star which was created with a low budget became a cult classic. Following his 1976 release “Assault on Precinct 13” which retold a western standoff due to a police station in LA being overtaken by gang members, he was approached by an independent film producer named Irwin Yablams and a financer named Moustapha Akkad during the Milan Film Festival to present a film idea they had to him, with the story of a psychotic killer murdering a number of babysitters due to the popularity of babysitting in the 1970’s, especially among teenagers. This was the origins for Halloween. John Carpenter’s Halloween has been said to influence the modern horror genre as this helped put the genre on the map, with its effective storytelling. This would be shown clearly two years later when Sean S. Cunningham released and directed Friday the 13th 7which was praised, but was also seen as a clone of Halloween and made to cash in on Halloween’s success. Quentin Tarantino, famous for Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, was influenced by John Carpenter’s The Thing8 when creating The Hateful Eight. He famously spoke to Christopher Nolan during 2 One of the major foreign waves which came about after WW23 When a shot freezes and becomes a still image4 When a character/narrator talks over the action. Can be done to tell story from character’s perspective eg Sunset Boulevard5 When a shot is filmed with no edit. See opening of Halloween 19786 Locations that are not built eg streets, houses, neighbour hoods. See The Bicycle Thieves, Goodfellas etc. 7 Slasher film that was released in 1980 and was called out for being a clone of Halloween, due to the similar narrative and portrayal of final girl Alice and the killer being shown in mostly point of view to hide the identity. 8 One of John Carpenter’s most successful films, however wasn’t popular around time of release due to E.T ad The Poltergeist being released at the same time.

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a Q&A in 2016 stating;

“It was the way I felt watching The Thing the first time I saw it in a movie theatre, I just really connected to it. This crazy suspense leads to terror to a place suspense rarely ever gets to…The paranoia amongst the characters was so strong, trapped in that enclosure for so long, that it just bounced off all the walls until it had nowhere to go but out into the audience. That is what I was trying to achieve with The Hateful Eight.” 9

Carpenter had many techniques for his films, such as establishing locations via long takes, considering the feelings of paranoia and tension when composing music, building suspense via his effective use of framing etc.

Genre Theory - Horror

The history of horror films has always originated to old stories about urban legends, mythologies and fairy tales which have been used for influence for films including zombies, vampires, evil sprints etc. Films such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Dracula and Frankenstein was some of the first horror films made and helped create a starting point for the genre due to the crowd pleasing narrative.

British Horror became popular within the 1950’s with the likes of The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy which helped elevate careers, most notably Sir Christopher Lee who’s usually associated with the Dracula films for his well consistent acting and ability to draw an audience.

The 1960’s saw an increase in a different style of horror. Beginning with the psychological horror Psycho by the Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock & towards the end of the 60s, Rosemary’s Baby by Roman Polanski and Night of the Living Dead by George A Romero.

These seminal films helped carve a path for the 1970’s horror which is most popular among horror fans these days due to the numerous varieties 9 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/hateful-eight/john-carpenter-the-thing-quentin-tarantino/

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from demonic possessions in The Exorcist and The Omen to slashers like Black Christmas and Halloween to documentary like horror with Texas Chainsaw Massacre to a supernatural Carrie to the continuation of the Zombie movies with ‘Dawn of the Dead’10.

The 1980’s horror saw much influence from its previous generations as the supernatural theme was played out among The Shining allowing Stanley Kubrick to continue his unique and influential styles.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains one of the most successful horror films to be pulled from cinema, due to its real life feeling with the sheer levels of violence and visuals that caused audiences to be sick.

Genre codes and conventions in Horror Films

There are many codes and conventions of the horror genre for example phone lines within the slasher aspects are often cut off meaning no phone calls can be made to police or any other help when can often result in a higher body count due to the stupid portrayal of the teen characters. The helplessness and loneliness feelings are focused on to create different types of a narrative for example in Hush, a deaf victim is targeted by a masked man who continuously appears at her window. The films with ghosts, spirits etc are often done well with extremely thought out camera techniques and jump cut editing to add to the overall tension of the scenes, widely seen within the Child's Play franchise as within the first film, the way each scene with Chucky killing shows the truth, which Andy tells his mother and the police but they choose to not believe him and instead accuse him of the murder.

There are also memorable set pieces, masks, colours etc for example green and red together symbolises Freddy Krueger, a hockey mask is the representation of Jason Voorhees, Saw franchise being built around a series of painful and torturous traps that cause uncomfortableness among the viewers.

Within horror, teenagers are often the main characters that the audience 10 Considered to be one of the best films of the 1970’s and helped the zombie films evolve and popularise.

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are to connect to due to the target audience of horror films being teenagers, however they are also often the victims of the murders within horror. The films are often set in popular teen locations like high schools, forests or home which help add a sense of realism as some horror franchises are based on real life incidents like Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. While most horror films use females as the sex appeal, Halloween was one of the first films to have a strong female protagonist that survived the events of the film that wasn’t used for sex appeal, shown in how she was dressed during the final scenes, which is something Alien used a year later with Ellen Ripley being the survivor of an all male group. There is often a theme of empathy within the villains due to a poor background/upbringing for example Jason Voorhees was bullied and ultimately drowned causing his mother to get revenge. There is also the empathy aspect in terms of how sadistic Krueger, Voorhees & Myers are as they all target teenagers however Michael Myers is dealing with his family and the issues he has amongst a particular members friends,

Jason Voorhees preys and strikes among teenagers who are out camping and Freddy Krueger who targets teenagers in their sleep before trapping them there and slashing them. Another theme within horror is the religious/ethnicity/race side with the Holy Spirit and bible lessons like “Don’t trust strangers” and some stereotypes being often placed in these films.

These themes can be explored in detail with films like Get Out, Devil Inside and The Ring which excel in the different stories they tell. The Omen is another well developed theme as the often discussed/conspiracy theory of possession by the devil being well played out resulting in a film with real life anxiety, paranoia and fear.

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Bibliography

Task 1 and 2

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Task 3

Task 4

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Task 5

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